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Blackguard
This step is pretty simple. The only race that can currently be an Anti-Paladin is Human. Humans, as in most muds and fantasy settings, are the staple race that are the least restricted in what gear they can wear and what classes they can be. As a human Anti-Paladin, you will be restricted to Baldur's Gate as your hometown. This hometown is expansive and easy to get lost in, but mostly harmless, and the most open city to visitors of other races, including the evil races. Anti-Paladins, as a class, receive certain "innate," or given, abilities. This is not a product of the race, but of the class. I will include these abilities here for lack of a better place to include them. *Detect Good - As the spell explained below. The Anti-Paladin is ALWAYS affected by this spell and has no need to cast it or have it cast upon them to gain the benefits. *Protection From Good - As the spell explained below. The Anti-Paladin is ALWAYS affected by this spell and has no need to cast it or have it cast upon them to gain the benefits. *Lifetap - Usage: lifetap - This ability is only given to Anti-Paladins. Much like the Paladin ability of "lay hands," this innate allows the Anti-Paladin to heal himself. This skill works a bit differently, however. In combat, you can use this to cause a significant amount of damage (up to 1/2 of your maximum life total) to a target, while healing up to 250 hitpoints of damage to yourself. This ability does not work like a vampiric touch, as you cannot go over your maximum hitpoint total. This skill can be used once every mud day (24 minutes). Rolling an Anti-Paladin can be quite tricky. As warriors, they have needs for good Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Constitution. As the priestly casters they are, they also benefit from a good wisdom, and also a decent intelligence. Although Anti-Paladins do not REQUIRE a high wisdom or intelligence, having a decent score in these categories will make spellcasting quicker, easier, and more efficient. The minimum stat requirements for an Anti-Paladin are: STR: 65 DEX: 65 AGI: 75 CON: 75 POW: 0 INT: 40 WIS: 50 CHA: 0 As a recommendation, I would roll for at LEAST: STR: Mighty or better AGI: Good or better DEX: Good or better CON: Heroic or better WIS: Good or better INT: Fair or better Note: An Anti-Paladin would be playable with stats below these, as these are just a suggestion. An Anti-Paladin benefits from both skills AND spells. They gain skills, much like a warrior, but also gain spells of a divine nature. Some of these spells are the same as those cast by clerics, and the Anti-Paladins have some of their own. Note: I have marked the skills that are core to the class. These skills are either very important or very advantageous to the class as a whole. 1st Level *Kick - A skill that allows you to "kick" a combatant for more damage between rounds. The amount of damage done seems to be minor at best, but at lower levels, it's very decent. *Bash - This skill allows you to knock a mob to the ground. Usually done with a shield to increase effectiveness, this can interrupt casters, keep an enemy from fleeing, or switching opponents, or bashing you or a party member! *Mount - This skill allows you to get atop a designated mount creature. Very useful for getting atop a mount before using "mounted combat." *Offense - A skill that affects your combat. It is automatic in nature, meaning that it is always in effect, you need not input anything to initiate it. *1h bludgeon - Your proficiency with one-handed blunt weapons such as maces, clubs, etc. *1h slashing - Your proficiency with one-handed edged weapons such as axes, swords, etc. *1h piercing - Your proficiency with one-handed piercing weapons daggers, shortswords, etc. *1h misc - Your proficiency with one-handed weapons that don't fit into the categories above. *2h bludgeon - Your proficiency with two-handed blunt weapons such as maces, clubs, etc. *2h slashing - Your proficiency with two-handed edged weapons such as axes, swords, etc. *2h misc - Your proficiency with two-handed weapons that don't fit into the categories above. *Bandage - Your ability to render a battlefield first-aid to a mortally wounded or incapacitated combatant. This can be used both on player characters and non player characters. *Swimming - Your ability to move underwater! There aren't many places in Toril where this skill is used. Having the swimming skill at higher levels decreases the effort it takes to move from room to room while underwater. *Rescue - This skill allows you to remove another player from combat and take their place in combat. Useful for mobs that attack the characters that aren't as resistant to physical assault. 5th Level *Defense - A skill that affects how well you can defend against multiple attackers. Also an automatic skill. Nothing is required to initiate this. It just works. 10th Level *Meditate - A skill that is used to, by deep concentration, pray for your spells more quickly and efficiently. *Quick chant - A skill, based on your intelligence, that allows you to cast a spell more quickly. *Clerical spell knowledge - Your knowledge of clerical spells. This allows you to more accurately identify whether or not a spell is hostile, and which spell is being cast. *Sorcerous spell knowledge - As above, but sorcerous spells, those cast by the mage types. *Spellcast generic, teleportation, summoning, protection, divination, invocation, healing - Your knowledge of spellcasting in spells that fit the specific spell type. *Mounted combat - A skill that allows you to fight while atop a mount. This skill is both offensive and defensive in nature. When mounted, your hitroll and damroll are slightly increased (the increase is not visible to the player) and you have an increased chance to "flankblock" attacks by moving your mount in a direction that either decreases the damage taken or negates the attack entirely. Flankblocking is automatic. You may also "charge" during combat to possibly stun and lag your opponent. 12th Level *Parry - Another automatic defensive skill that allows you to partially deflect or completely deflect an attack, decreasing or negating damage taken. Note: this skill is a pre-requisite for riposte. 15th Level *Dodge - Another automatic defensive skill that allows you to avoid, either partially or completely, an attack, decreasing or negating damage taken. *Blindfighting - This skill measures your ability to fight while blinded, in darkness, or against invisible opponents. It's an automatic skill. *Hitall - This skill allows the Anti-Paladin a chance to land one, and only one, attack on every creature in the room (excluding PC's in most situations). This skill lags the Anti-Paladin considerably, and is rarely used because of the lag. *Summon mount - This skill allows the Anti-Paladin to summon a coal black charger, their assigned mount, to their side. This skill can be used up to three times per mud week, and can only be used in a room flagged outdoors. *Unbind - This skill is used to untie yourself if tied up by a bounty hunter or guard. 20th Level *Double attack - This skill measures your ability to launch a second attack in combat with your primary weapon. *Switch opponents - This skill measures your ability to switch your attacks from one target to another. Very useful in large melee battles. 22nd Level *Disarm - This skill allows you to remove wielded weapons from opponents you are currently fighting. Note: You must be fighting with the target you wish to disarm. This skill is very costly in movement points, and can drastically hurt your armor class if failed. 25th Level *Riposte - This skill measures your ability to, once an attack is parried, launch a counter attack upon your enemy. 30th Level *Apply poison - This skill measures your ability to apply poison to your melee weapon(s). Various types of poison are available that can slow, blind, cause damage, or even paralyze your opponent. Spells are divided up into "Circles." See the Newbie Guide for help on which levels these circles are attained at, and how to use spells in general. As above, the spells that are marked are the most commonly used by Anti-Paladins. 1st Circle *Cause light - A minor damage spell. Generally not worth casting, as a regular attack with a one-handed weapon usually does more damage. *Detect good - This spell allows you to see a "gold aura" after all PC's and NPC's if they are "good" in alignment. Note: Anti-Paladins get this as an innate ability. *Bless - This spell allows you to, depending on your proficiency, temporarily increase your hitroll and positively affect your save versus spells. You can also cast this spell on other PC's or NPC's with the same effect. When cast upon a water container, this spell will create holy or unholy water in the target water container depending on the alignment of the player. As expected, holy water is undesireable to drink for an evil character. When an Anti-Paladin drinks unholy water, he is healed an amount comparable to a "cure light wounds" spell. 2nd Circle *Armor - This spell allows the Anti-Paladin to temporarily increase their Armor Class by 30. This spell can affect other PC's and NPC's, but they only receive a bonus of 20. Only Anti-Paladins and Paladins receive 30 Armor Class for this spell. *Command undead - This spell allows you to "charm" or control an undead monster. The chance of this spell succeeding is based upon skill and character level, as is the power of the creature you can control with this spell. *Detect evil - This spell allows you to see a "red aura" after all PC's and NPC's if they are of an "evil" alignment. This can be cast upon self or others. 3rd Circle *Create food - This spell allows you to create food for eating. Useful on long trips or when purchased food sources run out. *Create water - This spell allows you to re-fill an empty water container. Useful for long trips when your water sources run dry! *Pain touch - Much like cause light wounds, but more damaging, pain touch causes damage to the target. Useful in situations where perhaps the target is too difficult to hit. 4th Circle *Curse - This spell, when cast at an opponent, reduces their ability to hit in melee combat, and increases their susceptibility to all spells. *Curse item - This spell, when cast on an item, makes it undroppable. This is advantageous for weapons, to keep from fumbling them in a botched attack. This spell will, however, decrease the amount of damage the weapon is capable of inflicting. *Protection from good - This spell will create a magical barrier around the target. This will provide protection against attacks from good aligned enemies. Note: Anti-Paladins have this ability innately, and need not cast it upon themselves. They are already protected. 5th Circle *Dispel good - Only effective against good aligned enemies, this evil spell causes the target to suffer for their goodness. The damage is mild to moderate compared to an Anti-Paladins other spells and abilities. *Poison - This spell will cause the target to take a small amount of damage each "tick," or game hour. This is not very effective in most combats, as they are usually over too quickly for this to be useful. *Spectral hand - This spell causes the target to be attacked by a disembodied hand. The spell causes a moderate amount of damage. This spell, once castable, is a very effective addition to the damage and destruction an Anti-Paladin can cause. 6th Circle *Blindness - Perhaps the single most useful offensive spell the Anti-Paladin can cast. This spell causes blindness in the target. A blind target has their ability to hit decreased, their defense decreased, and cannot use skills such as bash, switch opponents, kick, trip, etc. Also, the target cannot initiate combat with you for the duration of the spell. This does not mean they cannot fight back; they merely cannot see you to re-initiate combat if you were to leave the room for some reason. This also prevents rogue mobs with daggers from being able to backstab you. *Fear - This spell, if successful, will cause the target to flee in terror. 7th Circle *Dispel magic - this spell allows the caster to remove spells cast upon him or herself as well as upon other targets. This will remove spells that are both beneficial and detrimental to the target. This spell requires consent to target a PC. *Minor paralysis - This spell allows the caster to paralyze a target. The paralysis is temporary, and is dispelled if damage is caused, or a melee attack is made at the affected target. Even with these restrictions, minor paralysis is a formidable and useful spell. This spell is more effective and has a better chance to succeed if cast upon a mob that has been previously cursed. Toggle vicious off before using it, or you'll automatically break the paralysis. 8th Circle *Wither - This spell temporarily makes the target easier to hit and reduces their movement, making it more difficult for them to flee. *Tazriks frenzied hound - undeniably the best damage spell given to the Anti-Paladin. This spell has a duration of three combat rounds, during which a random target in the room is attacked for a considerable amount of damage. This spell chooses a target at random for each of the three rounds it is in effect. 9th Circle *Harm - This spell will cause a considerable amount of damage to a target. The best single-target damage spell allowed to an Anti-Paladin. *Dark wrath - This spell, as a gift from their diety, temporarily increases the damage roll and lowers the save versus spells of the caster. This spell can only target self. 10th Circle *Unholy word - This spell only affects good aligned enemies. It causes a good amount of damage and has the chance to stun, blind, or even paralyze foes depending upon their level and if they save. This spell has a very short casting time, which is quite useful, but has a lag period afterwards leaving you unable to use other skills or spells. *Unholy aura - This spell, although it has a short duration, is quite useful. It only benefits the caster versus good aligned enemies, and is also castable only upon ones self. The spell has two effects: first it causes damage to any good-aligned attacker that hits you. This effect is similar to fire or coldshield. It also provides protection against those good-aligned attacks much like "protection from good". The purpose of an Anti-Paladin is not quite as easy to define as that of a warrior or cleric. The anti-paladin fills a multitude of roles, depending on what is needed. The anti-paladin, if in a group with a warrior, is rarely the "main tank" (the person who takes the hits from the majority of the enemies). The anti-paladin is usually used as a secondary or tertiary tank, an additional basher to keep multiple casting mobs from casting, or as a rescuer, assisting the tank in taking the hits instead of the spellcasting types when the enemies attempt to switch to the casters. Depending on which role is played, the focus of equipment worn changes. If I am a primary tank for a group, I tend to wear a set of gear that offers high armor class, and high hitpoint bonuses. When tanking, generally an Anti-Paladin is mounted, making use of his mounted combat skill. Without this skill, your tanking ability goes down significantly. (ie when not mounted on your mount!) If bashing, I wield a one-handed weapon and a shield instead of wielding a two-handed weapon and remaining mounted like I would otherwise. When bashing, it is best to use the heaviest shield you can find. The heavier, the lesser the chance of missing. If I am solely responsible for rescuing, I usually try to blend into a mixture of decent +hitpoint gear and +damroll gear. This way I can take a few more hits, and at the same time deal out some damage, all while focusing on rescuing the caster-types and rogues. When not filling any of these roles, being immediately able to jump in and cover any of them is best. There really never is a point where you're not going to be rescuing casters and rogues if they're switched to. The only exception to this rule, thus far, is when specifically instructed not to do so in fights versus dragons and other enemies that have special reactions to rescuing. Anti-Paladins are far from required for a group to have in order to zone. The best way to get invited to these groups is to do the best you can at whatever task is requested of you. If you perform well, you will most likely be asked back another time. Don't feel bad if you're not asked often, as everything an Anti-Paladin is capable of doing, another class can do just as well if not better. This makes the class of Anti-Paladin more for flavor than necessity. Keep that in mind when looking for groups. An Anti-Paladin is a more than capable tank, and rescuer, but the warriors tend to get preference in these situations, as they generally have higher hitpoint totals and don't require a mount to be a magnificent tank. As an Anti-Paladin, I found the first levels easiest to solo, or fight by myself. I used very little spells and focused on using my combat skills. The first few levels were spent with a one-handed weapon and a shield, using the increased armor class of the shield to my advantage. Once I reached tenth level I always fought mounted. This helped increase this skill to a higher level more quickly. Yes it was a long and boring process, I did less damage to an enemy using a one-handed weapon (wielding two-handed weapons while mounted isn't possible until your skill level is 75+) but they did less damage to me. I leveled by myself mostly, occasionally with a bard or a shaman, using unholy water that I created and the innate lifetap ability to heal myself. The spells Bless, Armor, and Dark Wrath are invaluable. The additional 30 armor class offered by the armor spell more than makes up for a shield when wielding a two-handed weapon, and bless/dark wrath both help save versus spells and increase hit and damage. Of all the skills offered to an Anti-Paladin, none is more devastating than apply poison. The variety of poisons available allow you to cause damage, blindness, paralysis, or my favorite, slow an opponent. An opponent that is slowed essentially has it's attacks reduced, in most cases by half. This, paired with cursing and blinding an opponent is, often enough to give you an edge over enemies you couldn't otherwise defeat. Have several different items available for each slot. Sometimes the situation will warrant +hitpoint equipment, sometimes savespell gear is required. Other times, straight hit and damage is warranted. Remember to remove weapons that don't float when you are fighting over water. Countless weapons have been lost to carelessness. Always carry a shield. The heavier the better. You never know when you are going to need it. When soloing, use your skills often, like kick, hitall, and especially bash. Also when not required to rescue or bash, use all of these extra abilities to increase your skill level and give that extra edge for damage. It beats needing to practice them later. Weapons that "proc," or have special abilities at random or when you land a critical hit, are always nice to have. A weapon that proc's blindness is invaluable. It keeps you from missing rounds of combat while you are casting it at a target. At lower levels you will need a hitroll of at least 20, recommended 25. At the higher levels, when using a two-handed weapon, this need will decrease to about 15-18. Be flexible! Adapt to the situation as best you can.